SOURCE: “Bion” in Lives of Eminent Philosopher,. Vol. I. Translated by R. D. Hicks. London: William Heinemann, 1925, pp. 422-35.

In the following essay, Diogenes furnishes one of the primary sources for Bion's biography. The author negatively portrays Bion's character, and recounts numerous examples of his wit. Diogenes is believed to have written in the early third century.

Bion was by birth a citizen of Borysthenes [Olbia]; who his parents were, and what his circumstances before he took to philosophy, he himself told Antigonus in plain terms. For, when Antigonus inquired:

Who among men, and whence, are you? What is your city and your parents?¹

he, knowing that he had already been maligned to the king, replied, “My father was a freedman, who wiped his nose on his sleeve”—meaning that he was a dealer in salt fish—“a native of Borysthenes, with no face to show, but only...